I'm currently in nearly full PvP gear epics, with the exception of a few pieces and I should finish them all up by next week. I'd say that I geared up pretty fast, and since I get a lot of questions asking how, I thought I would share with all of you.

So first, a few quick facts regarding the sets:

They do have set bonuses. You can't see them in-game unless you attain a piece. You can see the set bonuses at http://knotor.com.

There is a 2piece and a 4piece set bonus for each set.

You can use two 2piece bonuses from two different sets.

All of the different tiers of the PvP gear share the same set. For example, you can have a Centurion Vindicator's Chestguard and a Champion Vindicator's Headgear and you will still get the 2piece bonus.

The vendors to buy the items are located at your faction's respective hub (Republic Fleet/Imperial Fleet). They should be across from the class trainers.

Now, some quick facts about the tier items and commendations:

For each epic PvP tier besides the first tier (Centurion), you have the choice of buying the items with commendations such as Champion Commendations, or with tokens such as Unassembled Champion Frontline Force Mainhand Weapon

The reason why you cannot get Unassembled pieces for Centurion are because the boxes for that tier do not exist. In order to get the Centurion Commendations you have to purchase Champion Gear Bags and get them from there.

The unassembled pieces you get are completely random and you can get duplicates. With the unassembled pieces you get to pick what item to buy that corresponds to the piece you get (such as a DPS weapon or a tank weapon depending on your preference)

The gear bags are unique, meaning you can only have one in your inventory at a time.

You can buy the Champion Gear Bags before level 50, but you cannot open them until you are level 50. They are also unique so you can only hold onto one at a time.

You must be level 50 and Valor rank 60 to open the Battlemaster Gear Bags

The bags either give you 3 commendations from the previous tier, or 1 commendation from the previous tier and an unassembled item equal to the tier of the bag. For example, if you attain a Champion Gear Bag, you will either get 3 Centurion Commendations or an Unassembled Champion piece that can be used to turn in for an actual Champion tier item, such as Champion Vindicator's Headgear

It costs 200 Warzone Commendations and 200 Mercenary Commendations to buy a Champion Gear Bag from the PvP vendor (located in the fleet hub, next to the PvP terminals)

You also get the boxes from Warzone Dailies/Weeklies and Ilum Dailies/Weeklies

You can only get Battlemaster Gear Bags from the Warzone and Ilum Dailies/Weeklies. You can't use them unless you are valor 60. You cannot buy these like you can the Champion Gear Bags.

I understand this is probably getting confusing, so I will try to simplify it. This is the strategy I use to acquire the gear. I went right for the bags and didn't bother buying any blue pieces.

Assuming you are level 50:

Save up 800 Warzone Commendations. You can get these from completing Warzones.

Go to the PvP vendor, either in a Warzone or on the Fleet. Use 600 of your Warzone Commendations to purchase 200 Mercenary Commendations (Note: You can also roam around Outlaw's Den on Tatooine to get Mercenary Commendations from chests in the zone)

After you have 200 Warzone Commendations and 200 Mercenary Commendations you can buy a Champion Gear Bag

Now that you have your first box. Open it up! You'll either get 3 Centurion Commendations or 1 Centurion Commendation and an Unassembled Champion Piece.

Now you can start gearing up. Use the Centurion Commendations to buy pieces you need or want as soon as possible, and hope you get lucky and get some Champion pieces.

I personally used my Centurion Commendations to replace poor pieces of gear I had such as low level greens first, and relied on luck to replace the gear I had that wasn't terrible (Such as orange modifiable items with epic mods)

You also get either Champion Gear Bags or Battlemaster Gear Bags from Warzone and Ilum weeklies/dailies.

After you get to valor rank 60, you can start picking the Battlemaster Gear Bags from the Warzone and Ilum PvP dailies/weeklies and repeat the above process except with Champion Commendations and Battlemaster Unassembled pieces.

In short:
It's a huge grind to even get the cheapest gear. For the better gear it's a huge grind, just with an added random component.

Basically you need about 10-12 Bgs for one bag, with 15 minutes per BG this takes A LOT of time to even get 1 bag.

I disagree completely. Getting commendation isn't hard at all. I've only done about 3 Warzones on my level 25 Trooper, and I've already got more than 400. The commendations seem to be the least problem. Not to mention, PVP seems pretty fun. At least, for me. It may be a bit worse at level 50.

I've only done about 3 Warzones on my level 25 Trooper, and I've already got more than 400.

You're kidding yourself here:

1) Winning or loosing currently makes no different in commendations gains, it's just warzone completion
2) Each Medal you get during a warzone award you more commendation. Generally it is Tank > DD > Heal with about 10-11 medals for tanks, 7-9 for DDs, and 4-6 for pure healers. Each medal nets 5 commendation.
3) This puts tanks at 80 to 90 warzone commendations per match, all other will be lower then that.
4) After 1.0.1, loosing will bring less commendation, winning will bring more. Have fun winning if half of your teams are 4 random low level newbies.
5) One warzone takes about 15 minutes including queue times and waiting times for match to start. With 85 commendations per warzone, that equals 9,5 games, or 142 minutes, which is close to 2,5 hours for one bag. That's possible if you're a hardcore gamer, but as a casual it will be tedious.
6) Duplicates. If you get duplicate tokens, you'll cry. That's is. I've 5 different items, and already 2 duplicates.
7) Other then that, by the time you'll be rank 60, you'll have a complete champion set, which makes the champion commendation out of the battlemaster bag useless, and you're completely dependent on RNG from your two daily battlemaster bags.